Sweet Money (15 page)

 

Miranda is eating his pizza with his hands, placing one slice of mozzarella face down on another of
fugazza
. Perro eats it the same way. He takes his gun out of his belt and puts it in the pocket of his overcoat, without relaxing his grip. He waits. Down the narrow aisle that leads to Miranda’s table a fat woman is dragging a kicking-and-screaming six-year-old piglet to the bathroom; you’d think she was leading him to the slaughterhouse. When the way is clear, he covers the distance in three long strides and sits down in front of his prey. He takes the gun out of his pocket under the table and points it straight at him. Mole has frozen, his sandwich poised halfway to his mouth.

 

 

Mole finishes chewing. Impatiently, he wipes his mouth with the paper napkin and starts to fumble in his pockets. Lascano cocks his pistol. Miranda hears the unmistakable “clack” of the hammer.

 

 

Lascano sees Maldonado entering behind Mole and he nods to him. He looks at the check the waiter has put in the glass with the napkins and slips in a few bills behind it.

 

 

They step into the street, leaving behind the din of the restaurant. The cold breeze swirls around them. Maldonado stands behind Mole, watchful, holding his forty-five and looks at Lascano, waiting for instructions. But Miranda’s the one who does the talking.

 

 

Lascano smiles. Mole looks around, as if trying to find a way to escape but knowing he won’t find one. At any
moment it’s going to start to rain. There’s a cigarette stand across the street.

 

 

Lascano motions to Maldonado. He takes out a pair of handcuffs and Mole puts his hands behind his back to let him put them on. They walk to the car. Lascano tells him to sit in front. Maldonado stands two yards away from the car and keeps his eyes glued on Mole. Perro crosses the street and buys three packs of Marlboro and a disposable lighter. He returns. Maldonado waits until Lascano sits down behind Miranda, then gets into the driver’s seat. Because of the discomfort of the handcuffs, Mole sits crooked in the front seat.

 

Miranda asks permission to smoke. Lascano removes the cellophane, opens the pack, takes out a Marlboro and lights it, experiencing a powerful déjà vu. Resisting a mighty desire to inhale the smoke, he places the cigarette between Mole’s lips. Miranda breathes in deeply; when he exhales, the car fills with smoke, sinking Lascano into memories of his former life.

 

 

Lascano remains quiet, listening to him with half a smile. Maldonado looks at him in the rearview mirror.

 

 

They enter the station five minutes later. Maldonado speaks briefly with the officer on guard, then leads Mole to a private cell. They don’t book him; nothing gets written down. Lascano and Maldonado leave together, get in the car and drive to the train station. As Perro gets out of the car, he assures Maldonado he’ll come tomorrow to pick Miranda up.

21

He wakes up late. He feels like he’s been trampled by the Seventh Cavalry. The day before would have been too much for anybody: he moved out of his pension and into Fuseli’s apartment; he is certain that’s just what Fuseli would have wanted him to do. His encounter with Eva’s parents was like a hammer blow to his head, and the
coup de grâce
was catching Mole off guard, so to speak. Now he hasn’t a moment to lose; a guy like Miranda has more tricks up his sleeve than a card shark. He checks the time then dials Pereyra. He wants to get an arrest warrant so he can bring Miranda from the Haedo station to the courthouse. Once he’s delivered him signed and sealed, he can go and get his money from Fermín. He has very little hope of finding any of the stolen money; in fact, he has no hope at all. He gets Pereyra’s answering machine. He leaves a message, asking him to get in touch as soon as possible.

 

Vanina spends the twenty minutes Marcelo is late putting up stoically with the gaping stares of the lawyers who fill the Usía Café. She had planned to carry out this little conversation in the kindest, most loving way possible, but waiting for him and being drooled over have soured her mood. A few days earlier a man came to the university
to give a class on the theory of colour. He’s an architect, about forty-five years old, who stopped designing buildings and now devotes himself to the fine arts. He stands in front of the class with his dirty-blond beard, his turtleneck sweater and his Clark suede boots. She doesn’t know how it happened, but she went to see him at his studio in San Telmo, to take a painting class with him, and they ended up in bed. Now she thinks she should break up with Marcelo. She’s eager to be free so she can live fully this new love, discover the infinite world of art with Martín guiding her. She can’t decide whether or not to tell Marcelo about him, so she decides to decide when the time comes. She looks again at her watch – half an hour is really too long – and motions to the waiter to bring her the bill. She feels relieved she doesn’t have to confront the issue right away, but the relief doesn’t last long: Marcelo is entering the café. His hair is mussed up and he’s carrying a bundle of papers under his arm. In a split second, she feels contempt foreverything this man isn’t and she wishes he were.

 

 

Marcelo watches her leave the café. He’s sure of it: she’s met somebody else. He feels wretched. Vanina is everything he’s ever dreamt of in a woman.

He always believed he’d end up marrying her and having two or three kids. This was totally unexpected. He watches her cross the street and disappear into the crowd milling around the courthouse.
Is that how somebody walks out of your life?
Her lipstick has left an imprint of her lips on the coffee cup. The day begins under the pall of lost love. The sudden anticipation of all the problems he’ll have to deal with at work turn his sadness into a formidable surge of ill temper and he jumps out of his chair.

 

The telephone starts to ring the second he enters his office. He grabs it and it slips through his fingers, falling at his feet. He picks it up, still ringing, and presses a button as if it were the trigger on an atomic bomb.